Stolen Sun
by Andi Mack
Summary: When Sunny is taken during a late night attack, Dave and Hal are left without a lead or clues about who could have done it. Meryl, Mei Ling, and Roy all offer their help to get the little girl back but it could already be too late. !COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

Snake pressed his back hard to the wall, just in time to see the first bullet in a line of four whiz past the spot he had been only seconds earlier. A few of them took small chucks of the brick with them before they all went on to hit different objects in the distance. _Too close. _

He waited a few seconds even after the enemy sentry had successfully passed before he tapped a button on the Solid Eye, a device that easily looked like an eye patch from a distance. The green dot on his screen was still blinking. The girl was still alive. Suddenly, the screen went to static and reestablished with Otacon's image on it.

"Snake, you paying attention out there? Your reaction time to those bullets was a little slow."

Snake grunted. "I got out of the way, didn't I?"

"Barely. A millisecond more and that would have been your head."

"Well, while I still have it, could tell me where Shelly is before I go any farther? Her vitals are on my radar but I still can't get a read on her exact location."

"That's strange," the engineer said and keyed in a series of commands on his keyboard. "I sent you her location data about ten minutes ago."

"Well, I didn't get it."

"There could be something wrong with the equipment. You've been in the area before, though. You can find her without it."

"Yes, but that'll take more time than I have to get to her."

"It's a small area, Snake. Even if you searched every other room before you got to the one that she was in, you'd still make it to her with time to spare."

"Otacon, I'm not quite as young as I used to be in case you haven't noticed." He reminded his friend. "It's going to take me a little more time to get around this place than it did the last time."

"Going gentle into that good night, are we?" Otacon playfully poked at him. "Never thought I'd hear it from you."

As intended, the suggestion gave Snake a small charge. One he hadn't felt in some time.

"If you can get the map to me, great, but I'm going in without it."

"That's the spirit, Snake. I'll keep trying to sort out the equipment issues. Contact me when you've got her." And with that, the transmission cut.

Snake quickly traded in his SOCOM clip for a new one and peeked his head around the corner, matching his eye line perfectly with that of an enemy ahead. _Shit._

"What?" The man swiftly readied his weapon and aimed it in his direction. "Who's there?"

Snake slowed his breathing to try and get his heart rate to do the same as he heard the man's cautiously paced footsteps approaching him. When he knew the man was just the right distance from him, he quickly ducked out of his area and reached around to maneuver the gun out of his grip. Before the soldier could react, Snake brought the butt of the man's own weapon hard across the side of his head and took a half step back to allow his body to fall to the ground in front of him. He rummaged his pockets and belongings but didn't find anything useful. Instead, he relieved the man of bullets for his weapon and quickly dismantled the gun itself in more pieces than what it had been assembled from. He knew Otacon had seen him and that he would probably say something about it later. The thought made him smile wryly to himself.

Soon, Snake reached a long corridor with multiple doors on either side leading to all the endless possibilities of Shelly's location. Too many doors. Something wasn't right.

He moved into position to call Otacon but he beeped with an incoming call before he could pull up his frequency.

"Otacon," he called as soon as they were connected, "why are all these doors here? That's not the way I remember this area."

Otacon shook his head in true bafflement, a state Snake rarely saw his partner in. "I don't know. Maybe your body's aging is interfering with the functionality of your nanomachines."

"_Help me!_"

Snake's attention whipped into to the direction he thought he heard the girl's cry come out of.

"It doesn't matter. I hear Shelly."

"Be careful, Snake! Something's definitely off. If you want me to pull you out…"

"No," Snake immediately said, "I'm finishing this."

He ended the call and reappointed his gun ahead of him.

"_Please…someone help me!_"

His immediate reaction was to respond to her but he caught himself and hurried to the door he thought he heard it come from behind. He eased the door open with one hand and slipped the SOCOM through as soon as he had it opened enough to do so with the other. When he looked inside, there was a young girl around the age of thirteen peaking out at him from behind a large crate. He gave the room a thorough scan to make sure they were the only two in there and holstered his gun.

"Are you…one of them?" She squeaked out.

Getting a good look at the girl's features now, a cold chill ran through his body. The short brunette hair, the big blue eyes, the red framed glasses. He knew this girl and her name was _not_ Shelly.

"What the hell? Otacon!" He called aloud without bothering to punch in a codec frequency.

The shock must have done more to the state of his body than he anticipated because suddenly he was on his knees, trying to catch his breath in the midst of another terrible coughing spell. The girl continued to look at him, never changing expressions from when he had first come into the room. After all, she wasn't programmed to react.

"_I'm pulling you out, Snake._"

It was the last thing he heard come from his codec before his surroundings—along with "Shelly"--flickered in and out of solidity until he was alone back in a small steel colored room. A few seconds later, a door opened. Otacon hurried in and knelt next to him. He easily slipped out of mission mode and dropped the codename at the sight of the mercenary's suffering.

"Dave, you okay?" He asked with his hand on his shoulder. "Maybe I shouldn't have pushed you."

At the moment, the coughing spell wouldn't allow Dave to breathe much less respond. With the help of his friend, he got to his feet and exited the room.

Hal landed Dave in a chair in the lab and went to a cabinet to retrieve a syringe. When Dave caught sight of it, he hit it out of Hal's hands. He failed to react with more than the slight wilt of his face. He had expected it.

"No more…of that stuff!" He said, clearly exasperated by the gesture even in his condition. "I'm tired of the injections!"

"But they help…"

"No. They simply delay it." His body finally calmed enough to allow him to take some greatly needed deep breaths. His tone became serious. "Hal, you have to let go."

"I don't have a problem letting go," he said though he now looking away from him.

"That girl…she looked like Emma. I know that wasn't a mistake. You programmed her to look that way."

"It was a coincidence," he said in such a poorly convincing tone that he didn't even believe what he was saying.

"She was Emma down to the glasses, Hal, and we both know that."

Hal quietly sat down in front of a computer and began keying information in, seemingly ignoring the accusations. "There must have been a bug in my programming. That's why the map wouldn't show up and probably why the hallway had more doors than it was supposed to. Those are strange things to effect, though." Hal lowered his head. "You're right, though. Shelly wasn't a coincidence or the result of a bug in the programming."

"Programming someone who looks like Emma into a simulation up isn't going to bring her back."

Hal nodded in agreement. He wasn't delusional, after all. "I know. But, I just really wanted to see Emma rescued like she should have been four years ago and not killed by Vamp. It's stupid and I know you probably don't get it but…it's the only way I know how to deal with it." He brought a rotating, 3D model of "Shelly" on the screen and stared at for a long moment. "This is probably not a healthy way to grieve. Emma would laugh at me if she knew how obsessed I was with keeping her presence in my life." Hal's finger was resting lightly on the "delete" button when he felt Snake's hands come down on his shoulders.

"You're right. I don't get it…but I also can't tell you how to grieve. Everyone gets by differently."

"I'm tired of being sad all the time, Dave, and I'm tired of missing more people than I know." The 3D model disappeared and the word "deleted" appeared in big red letters in its place.

"Are you sure you wanna do that?"

He smiled faintly. "The delete key doesn't exactly support a change of heart."

Dave didn't say anything.

Hal spun around the computer chair to face him, "The next time you do the simulation, all the bugs should be fixed although I'm not sure there's a reason to keep training. You're officially retired and there's not much left in the world that the local police forces can't take care of now."

"Well, I can't sit around and wait to die an old man in my bed."

Hal laughed, "Maybe you could teach Sunny CQC."

"I don't think so. CQC is the one thing in the world Sunny can't do better than me. I'm allowed _some_ dignity, aren't I?"

"You can rest assured that you can probably cook better than her." Hal checked the clock on his computer and slightly raised his eyebrows at how much time had passed while doing the simulation. "I'm going to go check on her. I have a feeling she's not sleeping like she should be."

He quickly hit a few keys on his keyboard to close some programs. When he had opened the door to exit, he turned back to Dave, his curiosity escaping in the grin on his face. "By the way, was it _really_ necessary to take apart that guard's gun?"

***

As soon as Sunny heard Hal call her name, she knew she was in trouble. His tone gave away the next several words he was going to say to her and they weren't going to be good. She scrambled to find the remote to the television set until heard him descending the stairs into the living room.

"Sunny Gulukovich," he said her whole name in a way that made her completely cease any activity, "You're going to be in so much trouble if you're still awake down here." When he finally caught his glimpse of her, he crossed his arms in parental authority.

"I'm really sorry I'm still up, Uncle Hal!"

Without saying a word, Hal sat next to her and only uncrossed his arms to retrieve her missing remote from between two cushions. When he looked at her he smiled, a gesture that completely betrayed his tone from earlier. "You make it really hard to do this parent thing when you look at me like that, Sunny."

He kissed her lightly on the top of her head and let her accept the remote from him.

"Are you and Dave finished in the simulation chamber?" She asked.

"Yes. To be honest, I probably shouldn't have let him go in but, I don't know," he said and looked down at his hands. He hated himself for letting Sunny in on such a mature subject matter but she was the only one he had, "sometimes I really want to believe that Snake's not dying."

The little girl leaned her head on his arm. "He'll get better, Uncle Hal."

"I know it." He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her again, almost in the same spot, "Thank you for reminding me. Now, back to you not sleeping, missy. It's 2 AM. Your butt should be in bed."

"I wanted to wait up on you and Dave to finish in case you needed me for something."

He sighed. He felt responsible for Sunny's early maturity. It had been born from her situation and the situation of the people around her. She couldn't just be an 8-year-old…she had to be an 8-year-old who aided a solider in his final days and comforted an engineer in denial of it all.

Just as he went to suggest he tuck her in, he looked down and noticed she already asleep. He couldn't bring himself to move her to awaken her. She looked too precious. Instead, Hal adjusted himself as subtly as he could into a position he could fall asleep in. And then, quicker than he had anticipated, he did so.

***

Glass shattered loudly. The glass of a window.

Hal immediately picked up his head and then glanced down at Sunny. She hadn't heard a thing. She still had her head in his lap, quietly dreaming. Maybe he had been dreaming the sound after all.

"Hal!"

When he looked up at the stairs, Dave was rushing down them, hastily inserting a clip into his SOCOM. For a moment, Hal thought he had awakened inside of a scenario from the simulation chamber.

"What are you doing?"

"There are people trying to invade the house."

"What?"

"Get yourself and Sunny into the safe room! Hurry!"

"Wait, this doesn't make any sense! How do you know?"

"I saw them on the security cameras. There's at least five of them out there." He moved to a window, careful not to be in the direct line of sight for anyone who might be looking in. "I doubt this is a robbery. They all look like they have military training."

"I have to get upstairs to engage the system locks."

"It's too late for that, Hal! I'll take care of them. Get her and yourself out of here."

There were three hard kicks to the kitchen door before they heard it give way and fly open. They were coming inside.

Hal desperately shook Sunny until she finally awoke. She barely got to rub her eyes before Hal began encouraging her to get up.

"Uncle Hal, what's—"

"We gotta get to the safe room! Come on."

He yanked her up from the sofa and nearly dragged her to the stairs of the basement. A few steps down, Hal and Sunny heard the first explosions of defensive gunfire erupt. Sunny froze in place and almost looked as if she was ready to run back up to help Dave. Hal didn't waste the breath to urge her to continue with him and instead picked her up to carry her the rest of the way down.

He quickly punched in a sequence of numbers into the keypad next to a huge metal door. When he turned the handle and nothing happened, he cursed aloud and tried the sequence again. His thoughts were scrambled now and the numbers of unrelated phone numbers and dates were mixing in with the numbers needed for the door. In his third attempt, the door opened and he quickly guided the little girl inside.

"We've rehearsed for this," he told her though he couldn't quite recall any of those sessions at the moment, "Stay down here and don't come out until you hear the pass phrase. You remember it, don't you?"

"'Winters in December are never sad anymore.'"

It was the very last line in her favorite book.

Hal nodded. "Good. Don't come out until you hear that phrase! I mean it, Sunny!"

When she noticed him closing her inside the room without getting inside himself, she pushed against the action.

"Wait! Where are you going, Uncle Hal?!"

"I have to go help Dave."

"You have to get in with me! That's how we always rehearsed it!" She desperately reminded him. There were tears filling her eyes.

"I'll be back down here. I just have to know that Dave is okay. I love you, Sunny. I'll see you in a few minutes."

He held her hand a moment to try and calm her down but soon found himself slightly jerking from her grip. Her crying plunged a knife directly into his heart until the door finally clicked and confirmed that it was locked.

As he eased back up the basement stairs, he nearly tripped over the bleeding corpse of a male soldier in dark clothing. That meant there were at least four of the intruders left. A few more steps towards the stairs to the second level of the house revealed another defeated soul that had lost its fight with the mercenary. Three left.

At the top of the hallway, he peeked around the corner of a wall. He gasped when he realized the body lying in middle of the hallway was Dave's. He was down and not moving. Hal took a few vanity glances down the dark hallway knowing secretly that even seeing an enemy at this point wouldn't stop him from getting to his friend.

"Dave, please be okay," he begged an invisible power before he began a quick examination of his body. From what he could tell, he wasn't wounded or bleeding from anywhere that might be fatal. When Dave began to stir, Hal's sense of relief allowed him to return to breathing.

Dave's eyes took a few moments to flutter into focus onto Hal's face. But suddenly, they widened at something happening behind him.

"Hal!"

_Something_ came down hard on the back of Hal's head and sent his world into a tailspin. Every part of his head gained a ton in weight and forced his body onto the ground and everything around him into pitch blackness…

***

When Hal's surroundings came to him, it was Dave's eyes he was looking up into this time. He wasn't in the hallway anymore and in fact wasn't even on the floor. He was on the couch in the living room and Dave was sitting next to him on the coffee table.

Hal moaned in agony. "Oh God…my head feels like it came off." He said.

Dave's face was expressionless, unresponsive.

"Sunny's gone."

Hal sat up and grabbed his head when it felt delayed a few seconds in following the rest of his body.

"No she's not. She's in the safe room. I gotta go get her."

"She's not down there. I've searched the house from top to bottom and she's not here anymore. They took her, Hal."

The words once again passed through Hal's comprehension without sounding the necessary alarms. His eyes went to Dave's right side. He had the palm of his hand firmly in place over the area.

"You're hurt." Hal assessed.

Dave sighed in frustration and stood though it looked a little painful for him to do so.

"Listen to me. Sunny is gone," he repeated each word with it's own punctuation. "I don't know when it happened or where they took her but somehow, they got into the safe room."

"The safe room's pretty big, Dave. She's probably hiding somewhere in it still. I'm going to find her and then we're going to get you to the hospital."

He stood and wobbled a bit his first few steps toward the basement staircase. The bodies from before were still there. He made a note to tell Sunny to cover her eyes when he was bringing her back up.

When he was standing outside of the safe room door, he called out, "Winters in December are never sad anymore."

Silence.

"Sunny, it's Hal. Open the door, sweetie. It's all over."

After a few more moments of not getting a response, Hal punched in the code on the keypad once again to open the door. The room was quiet—the kind of quiet that only settled in an area if there wasn't anyone in it. Hal's heart dropped slightly but he went in anyway and checked under the small twin sized bed that hugged the wall.

"Sunny, I know that was scary but I promise everything's okay now. Come on out." Hal checked behind a stack of supply crates and then, inside of the ones that were big enough to house a girl of Sunny's size. When she didn't turn up in those, he finally felt his self enter a panic.

Dave stopped his friend as he passed through the living room toward the stairs to the second level.

"Where are you going?" He asked.

"Maybe she went back upstairs into her room."

"I've already checked. Besides she would have had to go past me to get there. I would have seen her."

"Maybe it was when you were knocked out."

"Then she would have had to go past _you_."

"No," Hal shook his head, "she's got to be here somewhere, Dave. We just haven't looked everywhere. How about outside? You checked out there? There's a door in the basement that leads into the backyard. She could have easily ran out of it."

"Hal-"

Before he could answer, his friend had taken off in the direction of the kitchen where there was also a door that lead into their yard. By the time Dave caught up with him, he was hysterically sobbing and screaming like his heart had been ripped clean from his chest.

In many ways, it had been.


	2. Chapter 2

Mei Ling couldn't take her eyes off of Hal. She had his left hand in hers but it was like holding onto the limb of a warm, fleshy mannequin: he had all the properties of a living human being just none of the emotions anymore.

"We're going to find her, Hal," she reminded him again hoping her continued repetition of it would restart something in him. It didn't.

She ran her free hand over his brow and whispered, "I'm so sorry" for the nth time since receiving his tearful phone call.

She imagined being under the harsh, florescent lights of an active police station at five in the morning wasn't helping him. But it was all at the request of Roy Campbell who assured them that he knew someone at the police station who could work the case better than any military personnel would.

When Roy finally arrived, Mei Ling nodded to acknowledge him and Hal offered a brief yet vacant moment of eye contact. Roy leaned down in front of him, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't worry about Sunny. We're going to find her. Sergeant Walter Adams is the best detective in his whole damn city."

Hal didn't offer anything in the way of a reaction and continued to stare ahead at the spot Roy's eyes had been after he leaned up.

"Kid's completely checked out."

Mei Ling got up and escorted the ex-colonel a few feet away from where she had been sitting.

"He's not deaf, Roy," she lightly scolded, "he's devastated. You have no idea what Sunny means to him. I didn't even truly know until tonight."

"What in the hell happened?"

"Well, Dave filled me in on the whole story before he went to the hospital—"

"Hospital?" Roy repeated, perhaps more shocked than he meant to sound, "Are you sure?"

Mei Ling nodded.

"Yes, I'm sure." She paused. "You don't know _any_ of what happened?"

"No," he admitted, "I got a call from Meryl and the only thing she told me that Sunny was missing. I called Adams and then immediately called you and asked you to bring Hal with you to the station."

"They were attacked in the middle of the night," she continued, "and Sunny was taken. Dave was stabbed trying to fight them off but he's going to be fine. He may be in the hospital for a few days, though."

"Who would take Sunny?"

She sighed. "I don't know. No one does. The whole thing feels random. They don't have any enemies."

"They didn't think they did anyway."

He looked back at Hal who hadn't changed positions or expressions yet.

"I know Sunny's okay. I just can't convince him of that."

"Well, we have to accept all the possibilities, Mei."

Mei Ling made a face whether she was aware of it or not, "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that there's no tellin' what guys like these will do to a child."

"You think she's—"

"No. But we should prepare for the worst."

"Hal can't handle the worst, Roy. Your guy has to find Sunny. _Alive_."

Roy looked around just in time to catch the eye contact of his detective friend, Sergeant Walter Adams, entering the station. He was a slightly overweight gentleman with dark, heavily ingrained features hiding under thick salt and pepper hair. They embraced briefly before Roy motioned and introduced him to Mei Ling. She politely shook his hand but thought the once-over he gave her that made her almost feel naked was wildly inappropriate under the circumstances.

Mei Ling followed when Roy walked him over to Hal.

"Hal," he said, "this is my close, personal friend Sgt. Adams. He'll be working your case."

Adams offered his hand but Hal didn't acknowledge it.

"To begin with, Hal," Adams said after redirecting his hand to his pocket for a pen and pad, "I'm going to need a description of Sunny."

"Maybe I can give you the information, Adams." Mei Ling said. He nodded and turned his attention to her. "She's 7 years old, about 4'3 or 4'4. Big, brown eyes and wheat hair. Very pale skin. The poor girl couldn't tan lying on a bed of aluminum foil."

"What was the last thing she was wearing?"

Mei Ling bit her bottom lip. "Oh. I'm afraid I don't know."

"A light-blue night gown with sleeping moons on it." The three of them looked at Hal. He was staring down at patch of tiles on the floor. His mouth was barely moving as he spoke. "It's her favorite one."

"Does she have any unique marks on her that we could identify her by? Any noticeable scars or birthmarks?"

Hal touched his left shoulder. "She's got a cluster of six or seven freckles on this shoulder. She tries her best to hide them because she hates them. She asked me one time if there was a way to remove them but I told her to keep them…"

Mei Ling sat back down next to Hal and reinserted her hand in his. She felt him squeeze it back, like he truly needed it there this time.

"And you didn't see what the guy who took her was wearing?"

"I didn't even see her get taken. The two bodies I saw were in dark clothing, though. All black."

"Where was the last place you saw her?"

"In our safe room." He answered quietly. "Pleading for me not to leave her." He released his grasp from Mei Ling to touch his own hand and remember the way Sunny had held on to it. "She didn't want to let me go."

Mei Ling was the first person to sense Meryl enter the doors of the police station. Her presence was immediate and commanding yet alluring and unruffled. She always brought that into whatever situation she was in, even ones gone terribly awry. It was the main reason Mei Ling had made it a point to call her.

Roy's whole body stiffened when his daughter walked past him. She went straight to Hal and embraced him for a long moment and then hugged Mei Ling as well. Only then did she offer her father his first acknowledgment.

"Hi Meryl."

"Roy."

The sharp properness darkened his features a little.

"You know Adams don't you, Meryl?"

"We've met." She sounded less than pleased by the memory.

"He's going to be working to find Sunny."

Meryl turned to Hal. "Is there anything I can do, Hal? Anything at all?"

He smiled weakly at her. "Thanks for being here."

"Of course. I love Sunny like she's my own. You know that."

Mei Ling touched the woman's shoulder to get her attention. "Actually, there _is_ something you can do. Dave is in the hospital. He's fine but he's probably climbing the walls and driving the staff crazy."

"Dave's never done too well in hospitals." Meryl admitted.

"If you could go check on him, that would be great."

Mei Ling thought the idea took too long to sound like a good one to Meryl but she finally nodded.

"Okay. I can do that." She turned back to Hal and kissed him on the cheek. "Hang in there."

Roy's eyes followed his daughter out of the doors. He drew a long, audible sigh in a moment that forgot that he wasn't alone.

"Here's my card, Hal," Sgt. Adams announced sticking a business card in his face. Mei Ling grabbed it when Hal didn't, "If you remember anything else from the night, call me. As much as I believe Sunny's alive, people like this can be vile and have no mercy on children. Do you understand what I'm saying, Mr. Emmerich," he asked as if it was in code.

Mei Ling felt physically ill at the thought and disgusted that Adams hadn't even attempted to be more sensitive with his words.

Hal had a hard time moving his head but he managed to nod.

When Roy had walked away with Adams, Hal looked up at the last pair of eyes looking at him now.

"Mei." His voice was thin and frail.

"Yes, Hal?"

"Sunny's alive, right?"

"Of course she is." She sat down next to him. "Why don't you crash at my place until Dave gets out of the hospital?"

"I'll be okay alone."

"Maybe I'm not asking for your sake." She countered. "I could really use the company. You'd be doing me a favor."

He shook his head, fully aware of her approach. "You're just humoring me now. I wanna go back home and try to clean up some."

"Come on, Hal. Let me do something! I don't feel like I'm very useful right now."

Hal turned to her. "What are you talking about? You've done so much, Mei. There's no way I would've gotten through all of this without you here."

"Good. Let me finish the job then. I wouldn't feel right if you went back to that house alone after everything that's happened in it tonight."

"Okay," he said, finally accepting her offer, "Thank you."

She wasn't going to let up and he was too shatter-ready to resist her anymore.

***

A simple tug would start the process.

Dave played around with the idea of ripping the IVs out and checking himself out of County General. He felt fine. The knife puncture had simply been a flesh wound. Barely even that, really. Everyone was tending to him as if he had a limb hacked off--uniforms in and out of the room, taking blood samples and checking vitals. He hated the attention. There were more important things to tend to. There was a little girl somewhere out there…a little girl that had been taken right out from under his watch.

"You plan on playing hero, old man?"

With a few fingers dancing on a wire coming out of his chest, he looked up and met with the piercing green stare of Meryl. She had her arms crossed leaning contentedly in the doorway of his room. She had been there a few moments.

"Meryl…"

It had been a long time since he had called that name and his pronunciation of was still a quick jerk in the coarseness of his voice.

She walked into the room and nodded at his anxious fingering. "Where in the hell do think you're going?"

"I'm checking myself out. I'm wasting time by being here."

"You have a few more nights here before you can leave."

Dave actually chuckled, "I bet that's what all the people at the front desk think too."

He finally ripped off that wire and it made his heart monitor noisily flat line.

"Dave, stop it," was all Meryl could think of to say in the moment as he continued to tear out the other strategically placed wires and equipment attaching him to machines.

As he walked by her to his clothes, she grabbed his arms but he swiftly maneuvered out of her hold. Quicker than what he had expected, she apprehended his wrist and pushed back on his chest until he had no choice but to fall back onto the hospital bed. Before he could reach his senses enough to sit up, she was mounted on top of him, sitting on his stomach. The sudden weight sent a pain through his injured side intense enough to make him feel like he was being stabbed there all over again. Not _a flesh wound._

His growl of pain didn't move her.

"I can do this all day," she announced.

Even in his situation, Dave was reminded why it had taken no time at all to develop feelings for her all those years ago. She handled things much like he did and was completely unapologetic about it. He liked that.

"I understand your concern for Sunny," she continued with a noticeably softer tone, "but there's no reason to be stubborn and reckless. Roy is taking care of things."

"She was in the same house as me, Meryl. 100 feet away from me at the most. She shouldn't have been able to disappear like that."

"I've been on this guilt trip before, haven't I?" She asked, their own personal history being a reference point. "You do this every time something completely out of your control happens? Blame yourself? Does that help at all?"

They both looked at the door when two female nurses rushed in—one dark blonde, the other a few shades lighter. They were most likely responding to the signal Dave's heart monitor flat lining had sent to the nurses' station.

"Is everything okay in here?" One of them managed to ask.

"Yes," Meryl said, "False alarm. Guess we got a little rough and didn't realize we had undone something."

"Well, you can't do…_that_ in here."

"I'm sorry. It's entirely my fault. I came in here to see him and just couldn't control myself. Newlyweds." She held up her ring hand for the nurses to see as if that explained everything. She then gently rolled her weight off him.

That action slightly disappointed him.

"Let us know if you need anything," the other nurse said directly to Dave before they turned around to file out.

"I'm sure Johnny would have gotten a kick out of that." Dave said once the door had closed again.

"Well, I had to say _something_. I'm technically not supposed to be in here since I'm not a family member and I doubt they would have believed I was your sister."

"How'd you find out I was here to begin with?"

"Mei Ling."

Dave rolled his eyes. "Great. The nanny."

"Hey, that _nanny_ has been taking care of everything for the last several hours, including Hal."

His face straightened. "How is he?"

She shrugged. "How is he supposed to be? His world just came crashing down on top of him."

"I keep trying to figure out how it could have possibly happened so quickly and quietly."

"They could have gagged her or chloroformed her even."

"But how'd they get her out of the safe room to begin with? There's no way Sunny opened that door knowing what was happening outside of it."

"She would have done it if she thought you or Hal were in trouble."

Dave's shoulders dropped. It was true.

"Dave, that little girl is a fighter. Because of you." She placed her hand on his shoulder. "Who ever has her, she's not letting them do anything to her."

"She's Hal's. She tolerates me because I live the house with her but her world mainly consists of just them."

Meryl frowned and shook her head. "Children aren't like that. They love whoever gives love to them. They don't pick and choose the prettiest or richest people to care about."

"Sunny and I just never connected the way her and Hal did. It's no one's fault…that's just the way it happened. It doesn't matter though. I'm going to find her."

"Trust me, Sunny cares about you more than you think…and you certainly wouldn't try to escape a hospital with a hole in your side for someone you didn't feel anything for." She turned her back to him and walked over to the window. "Children are untainted and pure. The world corrupts them and makes them into terrible people. I don't blame Hal for wanting to keep her in a bubble for the first part of her life. I might have done the same thing."

"You're going to make a great mother some day, Meryl."

Meryl placed her hands over her face for a moment and then removed them. "There's something wrong with me, Dave." Her voice was quivering now.

"Meryl…"

"I haven't really told anyone but…I can't have children. At first, Johnny thought it was him but he went to the doctors for a few tests and he was fine." She turned back to face Dave. "When we first got together, you told me we could never have children because you were damaged goods. Looks like I was too."

"When did you find out?"

"A few months after Johnny and I got married. The only people who know are, of course, Johnny, and…my father." The title came out of her mouth with much hesitation and uneasiness.

"Is there a way to…fix it?"

Dave really was tactless with wording when it came to situations like these. Meryl was used to it though and happily accepted the opportunity to giggle.

"No. What ever it is, it's permanent." She unconsciously touched her stomach. "I can always believe in miracles, though."

One of the nurses from earlier returned to the room—the light blonde.

"We'd really like him to get rest now. You can come back tomorrow morning if you like."

Meryl nodded. "Of course. I'll be back to see you then, honey."

To add to the charade she had created, she kissed Dave almost too comfortably on the lips while the nurse was still looking and then leaned close into his right ear.

"Don't get reckless," she whispered.


	3. Chapter 3

Hal stared at the ceiling for a long time. The window across from him in Mei Ling's spare bedroom produced a stream of sunlight that ran up the wall and splashed across the spot of ceiling right above him. It was moving slowly to the right and that's the only way Hal remembered he was still existing on _some_ level, still…alive to _some_ effect. He was still included in someone's idea of time and it was actively, excruciatingly passing. Without Sunny.

He hadn't slept at all regardless of his body's pleas to turn off. Sunny's sobbing face joined the collection of lasting impressions left by the people who had left his life. It existed somewhere between the way Wolf's hand landed on his as she retrieved her sniper rifle from his care and the last blink of Naomi's eyes that burned into his through the computer monitor as he watched her life fade from her.

Hal broke his gaze to look at Mei Ling enter the room and it landed on her smile. As little as a week ago, that smile had made his heart secretly flutter. She wasn't cute anymore. Not like she had been when he had met her after Shadow Moses all those years ago. Long gone was that round-faced, thin, plank-framed teenager. She was easily beautiful, now. Sexy even. The years had sanded over and nicely shaped her in all the places women prayed for that kind of customization to take place in and without losing it's ever present sweet and soft nature, her facial features lulled in a certain carnality and could easily toss its remaining purity with a half-oblivious curl of her mouth.

"You slept much?"

"A little," he lied.

"Good. You have any idea what you want for breakfast? I'm not much of a cook but I've been feeding myself all these years so I suppose it's edible."

Hal gave a courtesy chuckle. "Please, don't go out of your way for me."

"You know, Hal…you're really not as much of a bother as you want to believe you are."

"Honestly, Mei, I'm just not hungry right now."

"And you probably won't be hungry later or the next day either." She sat down on the bed next to him. "I see where you're going and I'm begging you, don't enter that place."

Hal moved his eyes to the window in order to change the subject. "Do you remember the day Jack brought Sunny to Dave and me?"

"I do. It almost seemed as if you were scared of her the first few months. But after a while, you became really sensitive with her. I remember that time she fell and got that bruise on her face. _She_ barely cried but you felt like the worst person in the world."

"It's a really good thing Dave's been around for a majority of her life. Do you know what she'd be without him?"

"What?"

"Me." He laughed but only the motion came through, none of the feeling. "But, she's so much stronger than I ever have been or ever will be. The worst part of this all is knowing that even if I would have been in the safe room with her, I still wouldn't have been able to protect her."

"You don't know that. People have moved whole vehicles in emergency situations."

"I haven't been able to protect anyone I've cared about, Mei. Everyone I've ever loved has died right in front of me. When we first got Sunny, I _was_ scared," he admitted, "I was scared to love her and risk giving her the same fate as everyone else in my life."

"Come on, Hal. You can't actually believe that. Dave is still around and I'm not going anywhere soon."

"Dave is living on borrowed time and you…" He paused. "I wouldn't suggest you get too close to me."

"So you think that my and Dave's chosen fate was predetermined by the fact that we were going to meet and become friends with you? Do you know how completely unrealistic this all sounds? Look at me, Hal."

He did so but only when he felt like the building pressure behind his eyes wouldn't actually produce any tears.

"Sunny is going to grow up to be an incredible woman and Dave, even in his condition, will probably outlive the both of us. You're not cursed so stop thinking like that. It's poisonous."

Being around _him_ was poisonous.

That was what he wanted to say.

But he didn't.

He chose to accept the invitation to bury himself in Mei Ling's embrace instead.

Four weeks later…

*******

"It's good to see you, Roy."

Roy immediately thought that Dave looked as if he had been in the trenches for the last few weeks, neglecting sleep or any other forms of physical and mental restoration that isn't allowed during a battle.

Dave gestured him into the living room and closed the door. "Hal's upstairs," he said when he noticed Roy's eyes daring to ask about him.

"Will he be coming down?"

"Probably not. He hasn't been extremely social lately."

Roy nodded. "Understandable."

"Mei's been a big help but there's only so much she can do. He needs to see Sunny again." It almost sounded like it had started in his mind as a plea but ended as a demand. Roy nearly winced. "We could really use some good news, Roy. We haven't heard from your friend Adams since the night everything happened."

"I know. There's a reason for that," he admitted. "Adams and I both sensed that Hal just wasn't ready mentally to deal with whatever could possibly come up while looking for Sunny."

"So you decided to keep us in the dark about it?"

"No, not at all. Unfortunately, there's just hasn't been a break in the case. But we thought it would be better just to give _you_ any information that comes up so that you convey it to Hal as appropriately as possible."

Dave's expression relaxed and actually became favorable of the proposal.

"That's fine," he said, "but make sure Adams has some sort of contact with me even if there's been no breaks. There's nothing worse than waiting without _anything_ to go by."

"Agreed. I'll make sure he does that."

Roy caught Dave's attention rest achingly on a picture of Sunny over the fireplace. Hal had stalked around a corner with a camera and taken it when she hadn't been looking. She had a sketchpad draped across her lap and legs like a starched blanket with her attention concentrated in the careful movements of her hand with the drawing pencil. Hal joked regularly that one day the photo would be worth a ton once her work was being shown in exhibits all over the world.

Perhaps when he realized what he was doing, Dave quickly diverted his eyes from it, like looking at it any longer would set his retinas ablaze. The glance had been intentional…but the emotion in it had most likely slipped out in spite of his best efforts to remain neutral.

"You care about Sunny a great deal yourself, don't you Dave?"

"I've seen a lot of things in my lifetime, Roy—we both have. I've seen things done to children…things that have shaken even someone like me to my core. I don't want anything like that to happen to her."

Roy sat in a chair across from Dave. "Sunny reminds me a lot of my own daughter, you know. Her feistiness and big heart. That's exactly how Meryl was."

"Yeah, she's still pretty feisty," Dave confirmed.

"She still has her big heart as well." His brow puckered. "I just feel horrible she'll never get to know what having her own child in it is like."

"Hal considers adopting Sunny the best thing he ever did. It made him complete despite not being biologically connected to her. I think Meryl could find happiness in doing the same thing."

Roy looked at him almost as if it was his own personal secret that had been told.

"She told me about her, uh, _condition_ when she visited me in the hospital a few weeks back."

He nodded, satisfied. "It takes a lot for her to cry the way she did when she told me the news and there wasn't a damn thing I could do. I was completely and totally helpless. As a father, what do you do when you find out your daughter will never have a child of her own? Anything in the world, that's what," he answered himself.

Dave nearly said something after a cutting chill successfully passed through him. Before he could, the sound of Mei Ling coming down the stairs stole the moment. She had a tray in her hand with food arranged on it the same way it had been on her way up.

"He won't touch it," She said to no one in particular, "and I know he's lying every time he says he ate right before I got here."

Dave stood to accept the tray from her.

"I'll see what I can do," he said before he went past Mei Ling back up the stairs.

"It's no use, Dave. He's beyond stubborn right now."

He didn't so much as blink at the warning. He continued to his friend anyway.

***

"I love you, Uncle Hal."

"I love you too, Sunny. I missed you so much. I'm so happy you're with me again."

The little girl smiled and reached her hand out to touch his face with her fingertips. Hal quickly dropped to his knees in front of her to make it easier for her to do so.

"I'm happy we're together again, too."

"Can I hug you?"

She nodded. "Of course you can."

Hal took the little girl in his arms and buried his face into her shoulder for several still seconds.

"Would you like me to adjust my emotions settings so that I cry too?"

Hal looked back up at the face of the little girl and dried his eyes. "No. You don't have to do that."

"Should we resume the hug then?"

Hal nodded and rewrapped his arms around her. He began to hug her even tighter as he said, "I'll never let you go again, Sunny. I promise."

He suddenly sensed a few wrinkles of disturbance in the world he had created. When he looked up, he was back in the familiar walls of the simulation chamber with his arms encircling air. Hal got the same drop in his chest he felt all those weeks ago when Sunny had been mercilessly taken from him the first time. When the door opened, he whipped around.

"Hal—"

"What's wrong with you? Why did you do that, Dave?" He snapped.

The tone took Dave aback. Hal hardly ever raised his voice or let it come out with such a razor edge. Someone else had invaded and emerged out of his body and it made him uneasy.

"You can't live like this. In some virtual reality."

"I can live however the hell I want until Sunny comes back to me."

"Hal, I need to ask you something."

He stood up. "I'm not taking anymore of that medication Rose wrote for me," he declared. "It makes me sleep too much."

"That's fine. This isn't about the medication, though. Besides Sunny, you, and me who else knows that pass phrase to the safe room?"

"I really don't want to talk about this, Dave."

Hal walked past him out of the chamber and back into the lab. Dave followed and finally gave the tray in his hand to a passing table.

"I know it's still hard to deal with but—"

"No! You have _no_ idea what it's like," he hissed. "You don't care about her like I do."

"Don't make it sound like I didn't care about her at all, Hal."

"'Like you _didn't_ care," he repeated. "You're already talking like she's gone. Like you're perfectly okay with her being dead!"

"What? Hal, stop being ridiculous!"

"Yeah, I guess the idea of you caring about someone other than yourself _is_ pretty ridiculous. How's that life of total emotional isolation working out for you?"

"Maybe I don't have as close a relationship with Sunny as you do…but this isn't fun for me either. But at the same time, my life hasn't stopped. It can't."

Hal went over to one of the computers and punched in a few commands to get his simulation back.

To get Sunny back.

"I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me alone now. I have a lot of work to do," he said soullessly.

"If that's what you want, Hal, fine. I'll leave you to wallow in your misery by yourself. I'm done doing that, anyhow. I still need you to try and remember who else knows that phrase, though. It's important."

Hal looked reluctant to even consider the thought.

"Mei Ling," he said after a few moments, eyes still on the screen.

"That's all?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure Dave," he said with an exasperation that suggested it was his tenth time saying it.

Both of them heard Mei Ling's tearful entrance toward the lab before they looked up to see her enter it. Dave was the only one who could move from his spot to go over to her though. Hal nearly stopped breathing.

"Mei…what's wrong?" Dave asked.

"Roy just got a call from Adams. They found a body. They don't know anything for sure but she's got the freckles on her left shoulder just like Hal said."

***

As soon as Roy, Mei Ling, and Dave walked into the morgue, Adams was there to meet them as solemn-faced as ever. Hal followed in behind them, a few seconds further from the truth than the others. And if it wouldn't have been for Mei Ling's persistence for him to come in, he would have been in the car still, a few feet away from it.

Adams didn't speak until they were all in the lobby.

"This is not a call I wanted to make," he began. "I'll spare you all the details of its condition but the girl's body that we found this morning just looks too much like the description of Sunny. I couldn't just shrug it off."

Hal had to consciously take a few breaths to keep the oxygen to his brain constant. Mei Ling noticed him wavering and put an arm around his waist to steady him.

"You said it might not be her," she reminded Adams for the sake of Hal.

"You're exactly right and I really hope that it's not. Someone's got to identify the body to rule out the possibility, though. Preferably Hal."

Hal immediately shook his head. "No. I can't go in there," he said. "There's no way I can look at her like that."

"You're the closest to her, Mr. Emmerich. You have the best chance of identifying the body accurately. It might not even be her."

"Do not put him through that, Adams," Mei Ling shot at him.

His glance went to Dave. "You're the next best choice."

Dave stared down at the floor for a long time though he knew long before ever doing that what his answer would be. Finally, he shook his head.

"I can't do it."

"Dave," Roy said with something in his voice that almost sounded like disappointment, "what do you mean you can't do it?"

"I mean that I don't need to see a dead 7-year-old girl, whether it's Sunny or not."

"Someone has to go in there." Adams felt as if he was trying to bait small kids into going into a dentist office. He turned his eyes to Mei Ling. "You're the last option."

Hal's arm hugged considerable tighter around her waist, anchoring her to her spot. Without even looking at him, she could tell he didn't want her to go as much as she didn't want to.

"I'm sorry. I don't think I can handle it either, Adams."

"I'll go," Roy finally said.

Adams sighed and massaged the back of his neck as if it was aiding the idea to register with him. "Come on, Roy. You know I can't do that. It isn't standard procedure. I could get into a lot of trouble letting you back there since you're a friend of mine."

"Nothing about this case has been standard procedure," he reminded him. "Besides, we really don't have much of a choice."

Adams scanned the faces of Dave, Mei Ling, and Hal once more for confirmation of the group consensus before he looked back at Roy.

"Fine. We have to make this quick though. Follow me," he said before they both disappeared around a corner.

"I need to sit down," Mei Ling quickly said at the sign of her knees buckling under her.

Hal, like an organic extension, followed her to a backless bench sitting against a wall.

"I'm going outside," Dave announced when he was nearly already out the door. Before Mei Ling could respond, the door was closing behind him.

She shook her head as she looked after him through a nearby window. "He's so hurt. His exterior is well-guarded but definitely not impenetrable."

"I know. Earlier, I said some things to him that I shouldn't have, though," Hal admitted as if she had just scolded him about it.

"I'm sure he understands that you're very upset."

She turned to him and brushed a few pieces of hair back behind his ears before putting her forehead to his. Hal closed his eyes and sensed her doing the same.

"That can't be Sunny in there," he said loud enough for only them to hear. "It just can't be. That can't happen to her. Sunny's fine and Dave's going to outlive both of us. That's what you said."

He opened his eyes when she didn't respond immediately and realized that she was crying.

"I know that's what I said, Hal."

"You meant it, didn't you?"

"Of course I did," she found his hands squeezed them in hers. "Listen to me. Whatever happens, we're going to get through it together, okay?"

"What do you mean whatever happens?"

"I don't know, Hal." But she did because she began to sob harder after she said it.

When Roy reentered the lobby, his face was completely flushed and his eyes were peaked and glassy. He had been crying.

Adams entered a few seconds after Roy and got Hal's attention before he sighed.

"Hal, I don't even know what to say," he said.

"Tell me that it's not Sunny."

Adams shut his eyes and lowered his head. "I'm sorry."

"Don't tell me _sorry_. Tell me that's not Sunny!"

Hal quickly shrugged off Mei Ling's offered comfort and placed his hands over his face and let the news hit him a few seconds afterwards with all the force of a tornado and every bit of the devastation. Mei Ling laid her hand on his back and prompted a sudden swell of emotion in him that wrestled him off the bench and onto his knees. After a moment, as if he realized he needed physical contact with her to continue breathing, he found her lap and fastened himself onto it like he was sinking into a black hole.

When Dave walked in, he took one look at his friend, crumbled in Mei's care, and inadvertently reached back to support himself on a nearby wall with his left hand. As slight as the movement was, it was the only thing that was keeping him standing.

Adams quickly made his way past Dave and exited out of the door and out of the heavy atmosphere that had formed. A few seconds later, a hand landed on his shoulder.

"We're going to get the bastards who did this to Sunny," Roy said, venom and tears mixing and pouring out from every word.

When he had exited, another cutting chill passed through Dave.


	4. Chapter 4

Mei Ling was standing closest to Hal when the lowering of the tiny casket happened. The sight ripped her own heart apart but she knew that Hal had to be coming undone in ways she couldn't even imagine.

She went over to him and embraced his thin—thinner than usual—and chattering frame tightly.

"Hey," she said, running her hands up and down his back and arms to generate some heat, "you need a jacket or something, Hal? Are you cold?"

He simply shook his head. In the same beat of the moment, he said, "I don't want to live."

"What?" She prayed she hadn't heard that right.

"I don't want to live anymore. Not without her."

"Don't say stuff like that, Hal. We all need you here still."

He glanced back at the casket, now sitting almost ominously in preparation for the burial dirt.

"I told you I was cursed, Mei Ling, and Sunny suffered because of it. I'm going to kill everyone I care about."

She couldn't find it in herself to immediately dismiss his theory this time. The pattern was tragic and unfortunate yet remarkable.

"That's not true and you know it." She kissed him on his stubbly cheek. "I'm gonna go check on Dave, okay?"

She didn't want to leave him but she couldn't bear to hear him talk that way either.

As she walked past Roy, she felt compelled to stop. He was in a trance, doing battle with some unseen force within himself as he looked into the grave.

"Roy," she said, placing a hand on his shoulder, "I want to thank you for everything over the past few weeks. We might not have had even this much closure if it weren't for you and Adams."

"This isn't closure," he said, "this is failure."

"You and Adams did everything you could."

"But it wasn't enough, was it?"

"Roy…"

"I refuse to stand here and pretend like I accept this. If I have it my way, I'll make sure I find out who did this…with or without Sgt. Adams."

Mei Ling touched his shoulder again but it went unnoticed.

***

Dave glanced up at her when he noticed her approaching but didn't say anything.

"You've been quiet," she said to him.

"There's nothing to say, Mei. We're burying Sunny."

Mei Ling pursed her lips together and clasped her hand over her mouth as if she had just remembered there was something unsightly about it. He touched her arm.

"Mei, I'm sorry. You're only trying to help."

"It wasn't you. I guess it's all officially hitting me. For the last few days, we've all been mourning the _news_ of Sunny's death but actually seeing the coffin… That means she's gone, Dave. Sunny is really gone."

Without thinking about it too much, Mei Ling turned right into the hollowness of his chest just in time to let her first real tumble of tears out since the funeral. He spent the first few seconds in a near frozen state, as if he was remembering just how to react. Finally, he loosely put an arm around her, imitating what he knew as the comforting gesture the moment required.

This caused her to suddenly retreat back to look at him.

"I'm not good with stuff like this." He quickly said like a preventative measure, just in case he was doing something wrong.

She smiled with a teacher's approval. "You're doing fine, Dave. Thanks."

She left his grasp but fell into a silence watching the gravediggers add the last few pats to the mound the coffin resided under now.

Dave shook his head like he was rejecting the images his eyes were giving him.

"Something's off. I feel like there's still pieces of Sunny's death missing."

"Maybe it bothers you that you still don't know exactly who did this."

"Perhaps…but I feel like it goes deeper than that. The attack on us that night wasn't only planned…it was well executed. Those guys knew exactly where Sunny was and how to get to her. That's the only way it happened that quickly."

"Dave, don't think about it so much. At least not right now. You may not realize it but you're mourning Sunny just like Hal is."

Dave peered over at his friend for a reminder of just how Hal was grieving. He was fighting to find something in him that would allow him to put the single blue rose in his hand onto Sunny's grave. When he did finally place it down, the action ripped open another wound in him that began to flood is face with a new coating of tears.

"No," he softly corrected her, "I'm looking for answers."

"I know. We all are and no one is going to rest until we find out who did this."

Dave nodded though he didn't look convinced that he needed anyone else's help.

Mei Ling caught Meryl approaching them in her peripheral vision. When she turned to greet her, she was surprised to see so much sorrow breaking the surface of Meryl's usual even nature. She briefly embraced Meryl before she turned to join the two of them now watching Hal.

"Poor guy," she said sympathetically, "he's truly been to Hell and back. I think making it a closed casket did more harm than good. I hope he'll be okay."

Mei Ling tried to not think about what he had said to her earlier.

"He's going to be just fine. He's got a lot of people around him that care about him. A lot of people fighting for his cause." She looked at Dave but he was too far into his own world to feel her attention on him.

Meryl narrowed her eyes in a way that suggested she was discreetly making fists. "This isn't over for the people who did this to her. I'll hunt them down myself if I have to."

"Justice will come, Meryl. Your father and his friend are taking care of things."

"Not fast enough," she mumbled.

"I really have to thank you for calling Roy the night everything happened. I'm sure I would have gotten around to it eventually but my mind was on making sure that Hal was okay."

Meryl's features scrunched slightly. "What are you talking about? I didn't call Roy the night of the attack."

This got Dave's attention focused on the girls.

"Yes you did," Mei Ling insisted, "maybe you don't remember but you calling your father is the way he found out about everything. I called you and then you called him."

"Mei, I hadn't talked to my father for months before all of this. He's been acting way strange for the past few months so I decided to just not deal with him. When you called me with the news, I immediately went to the police station."

"Strange," Dave interjected, "how so?"

"I don't know. Just strange. After I told him about my…" she stopped and glanced at Mei Ling, "_problem_, he became obsessed with fixing it. He had me and Johnny tested and retested over and over again. Once, even in Paris! At one point, he became convinced that if I changed my diet that I could fix it so he became obsessed with what I ate. The last straw for me was coming home and finding half the things in my refrigerator tossed out…and I hadn't even given him a key."

"But he told me that you had called him." Mei Ling continued to muse aloud.

"He lied then."

"Maybe he didn't realize what he was saying. Everyone was really upset." She turned to Dave. "Did you by any chance talk to Roy before you went to the hospital?"

Dave shook his head. "I didn't know Roy had gotten involved until Meryl visited me later on."

"I know Hal didn't call him. He was too distraught to call anyone but me." She twisted her mouth as she bit her lower lip. "This doesn't make sense. If no one called him, how in the hell did he know about what happened that night? Maybe Adams has some answers." She retrieved Adams' card from her purse and stepped off to the side away from the view of everyone to call him.

"If Roy had anything to do with this, it would certainly explain a lot." Dave said after Mei Ling wasn't within earshot anymore.

Meryl closed the gap between them and moved next to him. "Like what?"

"Like how those guys were able to come in and know their way around. He's been in our house so much that he could have easily drawn a map from memory."

"I'll be the first to admit that Roy's done some things to weird me out but you really believe he could have gone _that_ much over the edge? Enough to…hurt Sunny?" She had side stepped saying 'kill' as if it could hurt her physically to say it.

"I don't want to believe any of what's happened in the past weeks, Meryl. I barely want to believe that Sunny's dead…but the pieces fit too perfectly."

"Guys…"

Meryl and Dave turned to face Mei Ling. Her face was bloodless and she was clumsily trying to put her cell phone away.

"I called Adams' cell phone number a few times but didn't get an answer so I called the police station. When I tried to explain to one of the officers who Adams was and the case he was working, he said there was never a missing child case for a Sunny Gurlukovich filed with them. It never went through their system."

Meryl's face nearly took the same complexion as Mei's. "What? What in the hell does that mean? Is Adams even a real cop?"

"I asked about that. He told me he had never heard of a Sgt. Adams though he admitted that it didn't mean a whole lot since they get cases where they bring in people from other precincts."

"Adams is _your_ father's friend, Meryl," Dave reminded her, almost as if it made something in the situation her fault, "why don't you know about this guy?"

"I…I met him exactly once and it was at some party Roy was having. The guy's a total pig though and I spent a good portion of the night trying to stay away from him."

Mei Ling put her hand on Dave's shoulder and connected momentarily with him through eye contact.

"If we bring any of this up to Roy directly, he'll just deny everything," he said a bit more calmly. "So, we'll have to talk to Adams but I doubt him not picking up his phone for Mei was an accident. There's no way he'll answer a call from any of us right now."

"If we can't talk to either one of them, wouldn't that leave us even further back behind our starting point?" Mei Ling asked.

"Not necessarily." Meryl paused and tapped an index finger over her painted red lips to let her thoughts come together a little more. "I could get Roy to get in touch with Adams for us. That wouldn't be out of the ordinary. We wouldn't set off alarms with either one of them."

"Exactly," Dave said causing Meryl to smirk a little at the approval in his voice. "If we can talk to Adams, the rest will fall into place."

***

There were two courtesy knocks before Dave's door slowly cracked and Hal poked his head in.

"You have a moment?"

Dave nodded but didn't stop work on the laptop in front of him.

"I owe you an apology, Dave."

"For what?"

"Oh come on. I've been terrible to you for the past few weeks."

"It's fine. You've been through a lot."

Hal sighed in frustration. "Don't do that. I hate it when you do that."

Dave finally took his attention out of the notebook and looked up with a face that asked for an explanation.

"You pretend like your feelings mean nothing. I doubt anything I said _hurt_ your feelings…but it didn't help them either. I've been going through this whole process like I'm the only one who misses her and I'm sorry about that." Hal leaned his weight onto the arm of the chair adjacent to Dave. "I don't even know what we're supposed to do now. Do we keep her room the way that it is like some shrine to her or will that just torture us and keep us from healing?"

"You're a lot better with all of this stuff than I am. You'll figure out the right thing to do."

Hal nearly laughed. "Yeah, I guess I am the grief expert after all."

Dave shook his head, realizing the implication of his words. "Hal, no…that's not what I meant…"

"Don't worry about it, Dave. As many times as I've been through this, I think I'm supposed to have some kind of a plan by now. A plan for how to deal…and how to let go." He looked at his friend like he was expecting an input for the last thing he had said.

Dave was silent.

Hal reached into his pocket. "I thought about what you asked me a few weeks ago, about other people who knew the safe room pass phrase." He straightened out a small piece of paper in his hand before he gave it to Dave. "According to these records, in addition to Mei Ling knowing it Roy does too. I told him a few months ago."

"Do you remember why you told him too?"

"The same reason I told Mei Ling. If something were to happen to us while Sunny was in the safe room, I wanted a few people that we all trusted to be able to get her out. We all trust Campbell so it's not that big a deal…or is it?" He added when Dave's face didn't look like it agreed with him.

"No," Dave assured him quickly, "it isn't. Thanks for the information."

"I can nearly see the wheels turning in your head. Are you going to tell me what you needed it for?"

"Only if I need to and I really hope I don't. Hey Hal," he called when he noticed him on the way to the door, "you don't have to let go. Not just yet."

He nodded but without looking like he knew what he was actually nodding to.

Dave's cell phone rang almost as soon as he was alone but he waited until he was sure he would be the only person hearing the call to answer it.

"Dave," he heard Meryl's voice call to him, "I got Roy to get in contact with Adams for us. Hal still doesn't know anything, right?"

"No. As far as I know, he's still clueless."

"Good. I don't want to give him any false hope. If Roy is cleared of having anything to do with Sunny's death, we're back at square one and I'm not sure if he can handle such a step backwards."

"I agree. Hal did unknowingly provide me with something useful, though."

"What's that?"

"Roy knows the pass phrase for the safe room. If he was on the grounds the night of the attack, he could have gone through the basement door and said the phrase to get her to come out of that room. She knew and trusted him. She wouldn't have thought twice about doing it."

She sighed into the receiver in neither agreement nor disagreement with the theory. "This is too weird. It's all hitting too close to home, Dave."

"My gut tells me it's only going to get weirder."


	5. Chapter 5

When the door finally opened for Adams, Meryl was there to greet him. He looked around in the area of the living room he could see behind her.

"I thought Hal and Mei needed to talk to me."

"They ran out at the last minute. They'll be back any moment, though. You can come in and wait."

Adams strolled in past Meryl and began looking around but only so she couldn't see his face and the next question he was going to ask.

"So…which one of them is yours?"

Meryl raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Hal or Dave. Which one do you share a bed with when you stay the night here?"

"Neither one of them. They're my friends."

"That's not how your father made it sound. He told me you and Dave were an item years ago."

"It was _years_ ago," she stressed, "Besides, my father had no right in saying anything about that."

"He didn't mean any harm by it, sweetheart." He smirked. "It is kinda nice to know that you're into older men though."

"I'm a happily married woman, Adams, but even if I wasn't, I wouldn't touch you using someone else's hands."

He laughed in a way that suggested he'd intriguingly twist the corners of his mustache if he had one. "Make them Mei Ling's hands and we'll talk."

"That's it." Meryl grabbed Adams by the collar and drove his frame into the wall behind him. Her brute strength made his eyes widen more than the impact had. "What happened to Sunny Gurlukovich, you pig!?"

"Wha-what?"

"Are you even a real cop? Who do you actually work for?"

"I work for your father now let go of me!"

"Don't lie to me!"

"_Meryl, that's enough!_"

Dave's voice cut like a knife…just the way it did when she was still a rookie being trained and instructed by a legend.

Once being begrudgingly released from of her grasp, Adams smoothed over his clothes.

"You're nothing of the legend you use to be, Solid Snake," he twitted--albeit nervously. "You have a woman do all your dirty work for you now?"

Dave ignored him. "Tell us what really happened to Sunny."

"Look, I'm sorry for your loss and all but I did everything I could. Someone terrible out there got to her before I could save her. That's unfortunately the way of the world."

"I no longer believe that."

"Well it doesn't quite matter what you believe, Dave. That's my story. I'm outta here."

As soon as Adams turned his back, Dave grabbed his left arm and swept the man's feet from under him. Adams landed face down with a thud and howled aloud in pain when he felt Dave's knee press firmly into his spine.

"Let's try this again," Dave calmly suggested over the man's suffering, "What really happened to Sunny?"

***

"You know, you didn't have to treat me to lunch, Mei."

"Well, maybe not…but I _did_ have to get you out of the house and I haven't met a man yet that's turned down free food."

Hal smiled. "Thank you for everything. You, Meryl, and Roy have been really amazing through all of this. Dave and I couldn't ask for better friends."

Mei feigned a smile from the mention of Roy. "Well, that's what we're all here for. Hey, I need to visit the lady's room. I'll be right back," she said before getting up.

Right before Mei rounded the corner, he thought he saw her take out a cell phone and begin punching the keys but he wasn't completely sure.

His attention soon snapped to a figure that he found scrambling under a table across from him. He was sure they had come from the shopping mall entrance because no one in the restaurant looked aware of the presence. He had caught a glimpse of their shoes before they had disappeared—a pair of white Mary Janes. Sunny had owned a pair just like them. It was a little girl.

He waited a couple of seconds before he got up and walked over to the table. When he peeked under it, he met possibly the greenest eyes he had ever seen.

"Are you lost?" He asked softly.

The little girl ran her palms along those green eyes but shook her head.

"Are you hiding from someone then?"

She nodded.

"I bet they're really worried about you."

"She doesn't care. She's probably happy I'm gone."

From hearing her speak, Hal placed the little girl around 8 or 9 years old though she looked a little small for her age.

"What's your name?"

"Elizabeth."

"Hi, Elizabeth. My name is Hal." He extended his hand under the table and met hers for a small handshake. "Hey, do you want to sit at my table until my friend comes back? I could use the company."

"Will your friend get mad?"

"No. Not at all. She's really nice. Come on."

Once she was standing, Hal could see the girl's facial features. All of them made her look like a living doll. The perfectly rounded eyes peeking from under her ginger bangs, her porcelain skin, her thin, naturally ruby red lips—it was as if someone had made her in a factory.

"So, is your mom in the mall somewhere?"

"I'm here with my Aunt Lucy. I live with her now. She says that my mom is in a much better place."

Hal hoped his features dropping didn't look as obvious as it had felt. He nodded. "You know, you remind me of _my_ little girl."

"Really? Where is she?"

"In that much better place with your mother."

"Oh." She thought a moment and tilted her head slightly. "Do you miss her?"

"Yes. Everyday."

"I miss my mom, too. My Aunt Lucy said that one day if I'm really good, I'll get to see her again." She smiled at him. "One day, you'll get to see your little girl again too."

"I really hope so, Elizabeth. More than anything."

"Are you a good person?"

Hal chuckled and quickly swiped his hand across his eyes hoping she didn't see them tearing up. "Yeah. I think I am."

"My Aunt Lucy says that all I have to do to be a good person is don't say bad words and remember to say 'please' and 'thank you'."

"Your Aunt Lucy sounds like a very wise person. She also sounds like she cares about you a great deal."

Her voice became morose. "No she doesn't. I heard her tell her friend that I was annoying. That's why I ran away from her."

"I bet she didn't mean it." He put his weight on his elbows and leaned in closer to her from his side of the table. He made it feel like a secret so she leaned in as well. "This may surprise you but adults can say really stupid stuff sometimes. Stuff we don't mean. I know if your Aunt Lucy knew how she had hurt your feelings, she'd feel terrible."

She sat back when Hal did and took the time to really look at him since sitting down at the table. Her face became sincere. "You're the nicest adult I've ever met, Hal."

He smiled at her until he heard a woman screaming a familiar name that echoed the insides of the restaurant

"_ELIZABETH!_"

A frantic woman in her mid-30s rushed in from the mall entrance. She scanned over the booths and tables of the place until she spotted the little girl sitting with Hal. She quickly made her way over to her and snatched the little girl tightly in her arms.

"Oh my God. I thought I had lost you. Don't ever run off like that ever again!" She looked the girl in the eyes, "You have no idea the heart attacks you gave me, Elizabeth."

The woman finally looked up at Hal. She was a characteristically attractive blonde with features and a body shape that suggested to him she had probably sat at one of the lunch tables that had made fun of him during his high school days.

She extended her hand to him. "I'm Lucy. You must think I'm the most terrible guardian ever."

"I'm Hal, Lucy…and no, not at all."

"Thank you for keeping her in one spot. She can be quite the adventurer sometimes."

"The pleasure was all mine. She's a very bright little girl."

She turned her attention back to Elizabeth. "She's a very bright girl who's in a _lot_ of trouble."

"You told your friend I was annoying!" Elizabeth suddenly said to stop her aunt's guillotine from dropping on her.

"What are you talking about?"

"When you were talking to your friend on your cell phone. You told her that you thought I was annoying." She folded her arms and sulked. "You hate me."

Lucy covered her face with her hands for a moment and then hugged her niece. "Oh sweetie. I didn't think you heard me when I said that…not that I should have said it at all," she quickly corrected herself. "I'm so sorry, Lizzy. I promise I didn't mean it. I know it isn't an excuse but this whole being your guardian thing is still new to me. You have no idea how crazy it is to take care of someone half my age and height with twice my intelligence."

Elizabeth reluctantly let Lucy have a small smile.

"Please forgive me, sweetheart. I promise it'll never happen again."

"I'll forgive you if you do _one_ thing." She said putting her index finger up to emphasize it.

"Anything."

"Get me ice cream."

Lucy hummed in amusement. "We're back at the ice cream thing now, are we? Okay. We'll both get ice cream. How does that sound?" She took the girl by the hand before looking back at Hal. "Thanks again for looking after her. It may not look like it from what you've seen and heard but she's everything to me and I don't know what I'd do without her."

He cleared his throat but his voice still came out small and slightly unstable. "I pray you never have to find out."

"Me too." She tugged at the tiny hand in hers. "Come on. Let's go get that ice cream, kiddo."

Elizabeth glanced back at Hal when she was nearly out of the door and waved. He waved back.

"Goodbye, Hal. I know you'll see your little girl again!"

He waited as long as he could before he sat back down and finally let the emotions building for the last several minutes out. People stared, whispered, and questioned silently why the man in the corner booth was suddenly sobbing uncontrollably to himself. He didn't care. They had no idea what he had been through in just that moment alone.

He didn't look up until he felt a hand caress his back and a petite frame fall into the seat space next to him.

"Hal," Mei Ling called to him softly, "Hal, what happened?"

"I want Sunny back," he blurted out between sobs. "I miss her so much, Mei."

"I know. We all do, hon. We all miss her very much."

"Can we please get out of here? I want to go home."

"I just got off the phone with Meryl. Her and Dave are talking about some things and want a little privacy. We'll go back to my place instead, okay?"

He nodded. Anywhere was better than there.

"Okay."

***

"You're out of your _fucking_ mind, man! You can't do this to me!"

Dave had the arm he had apprehended earlier twisted behind Adams and bent in the opposite direction of the natural range of his elbow. At that moment, he applied a little more pressure to silently tell him, "Yes I can."

"All I need from you is the truth," he replied aloud. "I'm not doing this for sport."

"I'm telling you the truth! I don't know what happened to the girl…but Roy does!" He desperately stammered out when he felt Dave inching his arm closer to its snapping point.

Dave and Meryl exchanged a quick look.

"Why would he want Sunny?" Meryl asked.

"I don't know. I don't know anything. I'm just someone he paid to front as a detective."

"So you're not a real officer," she said, confirming her suspicions.

"Could you please tell him to get off of me?!" He pleaded at Meryl, "I'll tell you anything you want if he gets off of me!"

Dave slowly eased his weight off the man and released his arm. Adams rolled over and brought his limb into his chest to cradle it. After a few seconds of whimpering, he sat himself up.

"I _am_ a real officer, you know," he said, almost a little offended, "I've been retired for about a year."

"Retired or not, you should be in someone's records. You don't exist to any of the precincts around here." Dave said.

"Probably because my real name isn't Walter Adams. It's Albert Redding."

Meryl scoffed. "I really hope pretending you're another person helps you sleep at night!"

"Hey, I'm not the bad guy here! I simply did what I was told," he paused and added, "For a small fee, of course. And I didn't hurt a single person."

"Wrong," she shouted, "You killed an innocent little girl!"

"I didn't do anything to that girl! I've never even seen her!"

"_You_ found her body," Dave reminded him.

The man scratched his forehead and rolled his eyes at his incoming confession. "There was… never an actual body."

Dave didn't give him the satisfaction of a silence after his dropped bomb even though he had a brief moment where he had trouble remembering how to talk afterwards. "But…but at the morgue. You and Roy…you identified a body as Sunny's."

"Roy and I didn't identify anything. We went into the back of the building, discussed the baseball game from the night before, and we came back out when we thought enough time had passed. Roy worked up some tears before he came out and I put on my best, 'I've got bad news' face. I've done it so much as a cop. Didn't take much to make it believable."

Dave quietly eased himself down onto the sofa behind him.

"And if you're wondering about that little game of 'who's gonna to go identify the body' we played," Albert continued, feeling something of contentment at seating the mercenary, "it was all planned. Roy knew Hal and Mei Ling didn't have it in them to go back there. You, on the other hand, were a bit of a wildcard. Even with your grisly past, he figured there was a good chance you'd opt out as well…especially since you knew her personally."

"What if I wouldn't have opted out?"

"There was a plant in place to tell us that you couldn't be back there and turn us away." Albert shook his head in admiration rather than shame. "Roy pulled all of your strings and you all danced exactly how he wanted you to."

"If there wasn't a body," Meryl said, "who did we bury at the funeral?"

"Susie Smith, Bobby Johnson. Who knows? Kids die every day that no one misses or notices is gone, sweetness. Since it was closed casket, we'll probably never know."

Albert struggled to his feet whilst still cradling his injured arm and moved himself into a chair.

Dave stared down intensely at the floor as he spoke. "Is Sunny really dead?"

He shrugged with no regard for the sensitivity of the question. "I wish I could tell you. Like I said, I never even saw her. Only Roy knows for sure."

"Maybe you overheard something—"

"Look," Albert impatiently interrupted him, "Roy never told me anything that didn't deal directly with my role in his little game. I came in and I played detective just like I was supposed to. I don't know anything outside of what I've told you. For everything else, you need to talk to him."


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: Self-indulgence at its best. Look, I've always liked the idea of Mei Ling and Hal having romantic interest in each other so for the people who have read "Citizen Dave", this is not going to shock you at all. This scene was originally a lot different and went a LOT farther than Mei Ling taking off Hal's belt. But, of course, as soon as I finished writing it, I realized it was WAAAY too graphic for this site. So, I rewrote a good portion of the scene to make it PG-13. Hope you enjoy it. :) - Andi_

* * *

"Where's Hal?"

Mei Ling crossed her bedroom to shut her door before she answered Dave.

"He's in another part of the apartment. He can't hear anything." She reseated herself and adjusted the Bluetooth headset on her ear like a battle shield to ready herself for the information she was about to inquire about. "Okay. What did you find out from Adams?"

"Well, the first thing we found out was that his name isn't Walter Adams. It's Albert Redding." Dave groaned to preface the next part of his reply. "Roy was behind it all, Mei. Everything from the house invasion to that set up at the morgue."

"What set up?"

"The body that one of us was supposed to identify was never actually there. Roy already knew what our likely reactions would be to identifying the body and manipulated us all through our emotions."

"Dave…if there wasn't a body, Sunny could still be alive still. Maybe she's still out there somewhere." She was struggling to rein the rush of hope that wanted to burst out through her.

"I thought about that," he admitted, calmly counteracting her. "Just…just don't say anything to Hal still, okay? We don't know for sure."

"Okay. So, the police station…they were in on it?"

"No. I don't think even Roy wanted to tangle with the police force. He was smart enough to omit them all together. That's why he didn't give you or Hal time to report the case yourselves before he offered his help. If it would have went into any sort of official database, that would have made things messy for him."

"That bastard." Mei Ling had to stop herself from seething when she felt her lower jaw begin to hurt from clamping it down. She forced herself to take a breath. "What happens now?"

"Meryl is going to get him to turn himself in which means we have even more stuff we need to discuss, stuff that Hal doesn't need to hear. You think you can talk him into staying at your place tonight?"

"Sure. Shouldn't be a problem."

When Mei Ling went to check on Hal, he was still the way she had left him: stretched across her only sofa in the tiny area of her living room. Only the TV was now watching him. She removed his glasses from his face and then lightly tapped his shoulder to let him know that he didn't have to get up; only that she wanted to sit down. After she had grabbed a pillow and placed it on her lap, she lightly tugged back on his shoulder and guided his head onto it.

"Mei…" he called to her after he had adjusted himself to having Mei's lap under him.

"Yes, Hal?"

"What time is it?"

He hadn't opened his eyes for either thing he had said and his voice was so drenched in grogginess that she knew he couldn't possibly be fully awake.

She checked her watch anyway. "It's about 3am."

"It's so late… we'll have to go tomorrow..."

"Go where?"

He sighed a content note of music and began moving his hand out into the air like he was trying to catch a firefly. "Give me your hand, Sunny. I don't want you to fall." His hand continued to grope the air as Mei Ling struggled with a response. Finally, she gave him hers and he hugged it to his chest. "Please don't fall…"

She touched his face with her free hand and made him gently smile at the connection. "No one is going to fall, Hal."

He hummed that note of music again and moved his head in a subconscious nod.

She watched him dream silently, tightening his hold around her hand in the moments with twitching flutters of movement. After he had carelessly thrown his arm behind him, nearly hitting her in the process, he said, "Mei…you never gave me the login."

"What login, Hal?"

He fell into a silence for a moment before insistently moaning, "The login, Mei…"

"I don't know what you're talking about, hon."

"Maybe you gave it to Sunny."

Her heart sank once again at the mention of her name. She caressed her free hand over his forehead and hair. "Maybe."

He exhaled hard out of his nose. "I need to get home…" he proclaimed, but didn't do anything to suggest he was going to move an inch.

"Why don't you just stay night? Like you said, it's really late."

Silence.

"Mei…"

"Yes?"

"Tell Dave I'm going to take you home…"

She smiled. "Okay, Hal."

"I'll read to you when I get back, Sunny…"

He suddenly opened his eyes and stared up her like he had run over something but didn't know what.

"Was I _actually_ talking to you just now…?"

"You were just babbling in your sleep about different stuff. No big deal."

He grimaced in embarrassment and sat up. "I'm really sorry, Mei. I guess I'm a lot more drained than I thought. I only do that when I haven't slept much." He brought his hands over his face and washed them over his features. "I really didn't mean to do that around you."

"Don't worry about it. It was harmless."

"Sunny's really the only person who's heard me do that," he admitted with some remaining discomfort from talking about it. "She said that most of the time, it was funny. I'd talk about the animes I used to watch or just ramble off a bunch of stuff that didn't make sense. She'd tell me about it the next morning and we'd both laugh about it. But on occasion, she'd tell me that I had talked to her like she was Emma…or my father. I didn't ever remember having dreams about them but she'd tell me these details that I knew she couldn't have possibly known unless I had said them." He suddenly looked at her a little worried. "I didn't say anything about…"

"No. Nothing about Emma or your father. Just some stuff about getting a login."

Hal tried to look relieved but simply couldn't. "Oh, okay. Did I say anything about Sunny?"

Mei tried to keep her face clear of any answer in particular to make it easier for her to lie but she nodded against her will. "You did, actually. You were talking to her. Hey," she said taking his arm when his eyes saddened, "it's going to get easier, Hal. I promise."

"Everyone keeps saying that but no one can tell me when that'll be."

Mei Ling wanted to tell out to him what Dave had told her about there not being a body and give him the same flicker of hope she was now clinging to. But the potential letdown if it wasn't true is what made her swallow the news back down and get up to walk to her kitchen.

She took out glass from one of the cabinets. With her hand touching a second one, she asked, "You want anything to drink?"

"No." Hal caught a blurry reflection of himself in the glass of the table in front of him. He checked his face and grabbed the pair of glasses in his reach that hadn't registered as belonging to him until just then. His reflection, to him, didn't improve much in looks and the clarity from having his glasses on actually made it worse. The deep bags under his eyes, permanent frown lines ingrained on his face, and dying glowing embers of his eyes made him look and feel older than he was. He had never considered himself particularly good looking—average at best—but now, he couldn't even fathom how Mei Ling could continue to look at him. For the sake of his own self-esteem, he removed his glasses, smearing the contours of his face again. "Mei, are you afraid of being alone?"

Mei took her first sip of water as she crossed the room and sat back down on the sofa. "I try not to think about it too much. Living here alone is a little creepy sometimes but…" she stopped when she noticed Hal shaking his head.

"No, I mean _alone_. The 'not having anyone to miss you when you're gone' kind of alone."

"Oh," she said, suddenly realizing the depth of the question. "No, that doesn't scare me. I have you and Meryl and Dave."

"When I first met Dave, he told me one time that he was alone. I told him that we were partners now and that that wasn't true anymore. But then he said something that I truly didn't get until Sunny died: 'But no one will miss who _I_ was when I'm gone only what I did.' At the time, I knew I still had Emma somewhere in the world and no matter how distant we were, I knew that hearing that something had happened to me would upset her because she still wanted me to be okay and not just because there'd be one less person ridding the world of Metal Gear units." He stopped to check Mei Ling's comprehension. "This probably doesn't make any sense to you…"

"No. It makes perfect sense, Hal." She wanted him to keep going. So he did.

"After Emma died, I couldn't rely on that anymore. I stopped feeling like I had a personal connection with anyone who truly loved me. But then, Sunny came into our lives--this incredible little person who actually needed _me_." He placed his fist over his heart. "She didn't care what I was programming and inventing for Dave's next mission…all the mattered to her was the bedtime story I read her every night. She didn't need me to save the world she lived in to love me."

"Dave cares about you. Maybe he doesn't show it in the most conventional of ways but he does care. A lot."

"I know he does but it's just not the same as having a lover or sister or…daughter." The word looked as if it had knocked him over and he had to take a moment to recover. "I'm completely alone now. I have no one left to make me a person with a connection in this world anymore, Mei."

"Sure you do." Mei Ling had no idea what she was saying…only that couldn't stand to see and hear the poor otaku so depressed anymore. "I promise you're not alone. And you never will be."

Hal's feeble attempt at a chuckle to brush off the weight of the moment sounded like it wanted to be the beginnings of another emotional breakdown. He once again found his single, fuzzy reflection in the glass table and stared down at it.

"It's okay. You can't argue or fight with fate, right? Maybe this is just the way it's supposed to be. I should just learn to live with it."

Suddenly, there was another reflection with his, laying their head on one of his shoulders, reaching their hand around to the other one.

"There are many things you have to learn to live with. Being alone isn't one of them. You'll always have a link, Hal Emmerich. Even if it has to be little ol' me."

When Hal's face illuminated with a small laugh, she squeezed his shoulder. "That's what I love to hear." She looked up at him when she felt him looking down at her. His blue eyes were such vulnerable, lucid windows into his every thought and pain. It frightened her and delighted her all at the same time. "There's a lot of darkness right now and it's making everything _feel _more bleak than it really is. I meant what I said though—about you always having me. I'll be in your life as long as you allow me to be."

Hal's eyes disappeared out of her eye line around the time his arm slipped around her waist. He was kissing her and she was kissing back though she couldn't recount when she had began doing so. As far as she knew, she was still locked in a several second debate with her brain about just whose lips she was even kissing. Hal Emmerich was shy, reserved, and would turn ten different shades of red for even thinking about running his hands along all the territories of her body they were going now. The rush of stimulation those hands were causing in her own body made _her_ blush.

Hal lost his surroundings as his mouth tangled with hers in endlessly little moments of stop motion. Her lips were soft, luscious, and thinly coated in something wonderful that smelled and tasted a lot like cherry. The only other thing that registered was the shifting positions of her hands. They spent a few moments on his shoulders first and then seamless wrapped around the back of his neck to pull his body to cover hers. After that, they raked up through his hair--a move that, in the heat of the moment he guessed, made his every nerve-ending quiver like crazy.

Around the time he concluded he couldn't take not knowing what the flesh under her clothing tasted like anymore, he broke the kiss and created a blockade for his building lust.

"What's wrong?" Mei asked. She had her hands on his now unbuckled belt, ready to rid him of it completely.

"I really don't do this…" He prayed she knew what he meant and just took it as an apology for anything he might do wrong, gracelessly, or even not at all if they continued. He cringed at the thought of having to elaborate on his inexperience.

He waited on her face to develop the results of his admission.

But nothing ever showed.

Despite the absence of an expression or words, Hal clearly got what she was screaming at him: She didn't care. Not nearly as much as he did. And after tasting that wonderfully cherry concoction on her lips again and hearing his belt land in some unknown area of the living room, he decided he should stop caring too.


	7. Chapter 7

Meryl killed the engine of her car and took in the view of her father's house. The sight of it made her physically uncomfortable for the first time ever. Like she was trying to talk herself into walking through an open fire. Right when her hand made the first initiative to finally exit the vehicle, her cell phone rang from her pocket.

She glanced at it, sighed and flipped it open. "Dave, why are you calling me? Is something wrong?"

"I changed my mind. I don't want you going in there alone."

"This isn't a mission. I'm going in to see my father at his house. It has to look like a typical visit."

"Visually, yes…but in nature, this isn't a typical visit, Meryl. I'm sure he knows there's something up by now. Let me go in with you. I can be there in a couple of minutes."

"Well, from the _visual_ aspect of it," she stressed, doing air quotes in her mind's eye, "how do I explain why my ex-boyfriend felt the need to walk me in?"

"Maybe I wanted to say 'hi'."

"You're not exactly known for dropping by to check up on people."

"I just don't want anything to happen to you, Meryl. Not again."

Meryl purposefully ignored the event he was alluding to in his tone. "Is this you getting protective all of a sudden," she asked, only sounding tickled by the idea, "You'd think I was 19 again."

"I don't trust him. Not after everything's that happened."

She finally turned serious. "I know. I don't either. But the last thing he'll do is hurt me."

"Maybe that was true two months ago, Meryl, but he did _something_ to Sunny. There's no such thing as a moral code for him anymore."

Meryl sighed. She didn't need a reminder.

"Just trust me on this, okay? Stand down, Dave. If you come rushing in, he'll know something's up for sure. I have to do this alone."

A decisional beat passed between them before Dave quietly offered, "Be careful."

That was as good as a waving white flag to her. This made her smile.

"Aren't I always?"

She quickly ended the call before he could respond to keep the question a rhetorical one.

***

"It's just the way you like it. Coffee first, then creamer, _then_ sugar. I know how exact you are about the order they all go in."

Roy wanted his daughter to reward his attention to detail with a chuckle or at least smile but she didn't. She simply nodded and accepted the mug from him.

"So, how's Hal doing," he asked, sitting in the chair across from her.

"As well as he can considering."

Roy stirred his coffee a bit and placed the spoon down on an awaiting napkin on the table. "I really can't offer my condolences enough. I sympathize with him greatly."

"I bet."

"Next time you see him, tell him I'll help him any way I can. I've, more or less, lost a child before so I know what it's like."

Meryl narrowed her eyes. "What does that mean?"

"I think you know, Meryl. Somewhere down the road, I lost you. Maybe we were never close but I can't remember another time where you've hated me so much."

"Don't make yourself the victim. You made me push you out of my life, Roy."

"I was trying to help you," he shot back, "I wanted you to know the joys of motherhood like any other woman."

"Johnny and I were on our way to accepting the diagnosis. We were ready to live with it. But then you started jetting me from doctor to doctor just so they could all just remind me that I would never bare children! It didn't matter whether it was being said in Philadelphia or Paris or Glasgow--it all hurt just the same. You made it worse. Don't you realize that?"

"I did what any father would do—"

"No! You did what any _crazy_ father would do. You controlled my life until I had to force you out of it." Meryl stole a moment to calm herself before she put down her coffee. "I'm not here to talk over coffee, Roy. Dave, Mei Ling, and I—we all know what really happened the night of that attack."

He exhaled and nodded in acceptance of the news. "Yes. I knew Albert would break sooner or later. He contacted me a few hours after your and Dave's little interrogation."

"You have 8 hours to turn yourself in for the murder of Sunny Gurlukovich. If you don't, I'll return here with people who'll get the confession out of you. The choice is yours."

Roy blinked and smiled a smile only he knew the motivation behind. "Meryl, I want to show you something."

He suddenly stood and left the room without looking to see if his daughter would follow him.

He knew she would.

***

When they had both reached the lone door in the hallway, Meryl's hand automatically found the gun holstered at her side and hovered over it.

"I wouldn't do that," he calmly warned without having to even look at her. "You'll scare her."

When he opened the door, Meryl had to catch herself on the frame of the door at the sight.

Sunny was alive. In fact, she was happily lying across a bed with an artist's intensity on the picture she was drawing on a giant sketchpad in front of her. After she sensed she had company, she looked up and smiled.

"Hi, Meryl."

Meryl slowly walked in and sat down on the bed, never taking her eyes off the little girl.

"Meryl? Are you okay?" She asked.

She moved her head in a nod to the question and then quickly embraced the little girl like an apparition she had to touch before it faded away again.

"My God…it's really you, Sunny." She pulled the girl away from her and ran her hands over her facial features, just to make sure she could feel the same things she was seeing. Sunny giggled from the contact. "You're okay."

"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Hey, Sunny," Roy interrupted before Meryl had chance to answer. "I need to borrow Meryl for a moment. Is that okay?"

"Okay. I wanna show her my picture before she leaves, though."

"Of course, Sunny. I'll be happy to see your picture."

When they were out of the hallway and out of Sunny's listening range, Meryl exploded.

"You BASTARD!"

"Meryl—"

"Do you have _any_ idea the hell we've all be going through thinking she was dead?! And even if you had no sympathy for the rest of us, how could do this to Hal? His whole world is in Sunny and you took it from him!"

"I know you're upset."

"Upset," she spit back out at him an octave higher than her normal voice, "No, I'll downgrade to upset when your ass is in jail on kidnapping charges, Roy! You son of a bitch!" She lost what to do with the adrenaline and rage cocktail that was mixing in her bloodstream and began to use it to walk away from him.

"I did it for you."

She stopped and pirouetted back to him. "Bullshit! You're a selfish, conniving, evil old man and after today, I never want to see you again. Sunny is leaving here with me. I'm taking her home."

"I was hoping you'd say that, Meryl. She _is_ for you, after all."

"What are you talking about?"

Roy took his daughter sincerely by the shoulders. "Maybe I can't give you a child of your own to love…but I can give you a child that you can love like your own."

Meryl yanked herself free and took a few steps back. "You're not just crazy. You're completely sadistic!"

"I know you never wanted to go through with an adoption process. It's impersonal and you end up with some child you have no kind of bonds with for months, years even." He smiled, truly believing in his logic. "You love Sunny and more importantly, you both have a bond! She can be yours, Meryl, and no one has to know what happened."

"This is…this is sick! How could ever think that this is what I wanted?"

"Because I see the way you long to have a connection with someone to call your child."

Everything in Meryl's body froze except for the tears that disobediently began to storm down her face. "Stop it," she said with less force than she had anticipated.

"Do you remember what you told me when you first found out the news? You told me you didn't feel like a woman anymore. How was I supposed to stand by and let you feel that way?"

Roy grabbed his daughter when she began to sob but they tussled briefly before she successfully pushed him away and turned her back to him.

"I love you, Meryl. I've loved you from the moment you were born and I thought you were my niece. But ever since finding out you were my daughter, I've only wanted to give you the world."

"Even if it meant stealing someone else's." She dried her eyes and turned to face Roy again. "You're a monster. But you're the worst kind of monster because you can look in the mirror and still see a person. I'm taking Sunny back to Hal and Dave."

"If you take her back to them, you could add to the damage yourself."

"I don't give a damn what you say, Roy. She's going back to where she belongs."

"She thinks they're both dead."

"What?" The news barely drew a gasp and her tone came out more like annoyance than shock. "What in the hell did you tell her?"

"She thinks the attackers killed them that night." Roy sat down. "Sunny concluded for herself that something bad had happened to Hal and Dave when she heard me come get her from the safe room. I simply added to it by telling her that Hal had called me, near death, to tell me to take care of her." He looked up at Meryl who looked like she was actively deciding the exact moment to hit him. "Think about what you'll be doing to her mentally if you jog her reality like that. She's just a child. You'll confuse her to the point of traumatization."

"_I'll_ traumatize her? You think sending in a small army to invade her home and kill the people she loved isn't going to send her to therapy for the next 40 years of her life?"

"She wouldn't have to go through all of that with you and Johnny there for her...as her parents. I've given all three of you a clean slate. You and I are the only ones that know the truth right now and that doesn't ever have to change."

"Johnny will never go along with this…and even if by some slight chance he does, Dave will figure everything out and blow this whole twisted plan out of the water."

"Johnny's beyond loyal to you. He'll follow you to the ends of the earth. His cooperation is hardly an obstacle. You know that." Roy sighed and lowered his head. "Dave is a great friend. That's one thing you can trust and the last thing I wanted to happen that night was for him to get hurt but one of those men, they disobeyed my orders…" '_and greatly paid for it_' easily read across his face. His eyes returned to Meryl's. "Even if he does figure it all out, he'll be too sick to do anything about it."

He walked to a small table with a drawer and produced a small packet.

"In this are three plane tickets to wherever you want to start you new life. I'll cover all your expenses to keep you off anyone's radar."

Without realizing it, the packet was in her hands.

"All that's ever mattered to me. Your happiness."

The both tried to play off the context of their conversation when Sunny rounded the corner waving a piece of paper in her hand.

"Good!" she happily said when she saw Meryl. "You're still here. You can see my drawing now."

Meryl accepted the paper from the girl. There were three figures on it, one of dramatically smaller than the other two.

"That's me," she said pointing to the smallest figure. She pointed to one with glasses, "That's my Uncle Hal, and that one is Dave," she said, pointing to the final figure with gray pencil strokes for hair. "This way, all three of us can always be together."

"It's…it's beautiful, Sunny," she choked out before handing it back to her. "It truly is."

"I'm sorry Meryl. I didn't mean to make you cry. I guess you miss Dave and Uncle Hal just as much as I do."

Meryl crouched to be eye level with her. "Sunny…I have a wonderful surprise for you…but you have to come with me first, okay?"

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see. Come on."

She extended her hand and Sunny eagerly took it.

Roy followed them to the front door and stopped Meryl before she could successfully make her exit. She urged Sunny to go on to her awaiting car.

"You're making a huge mistake. The plan's near flawless. You could have what you always wanted."

"Burn in Hell, Roy."

With that, she broke away and hurried off the porch, down the driveway, and into the driver's seat of her car. She had barely snapped the seat belt across before her car was peeling off his property and traveling down the road.

***

After a moment of driving in silence, Meryl finally released the severe hold on the steering wheel that had magically made the car feel like it was going faster than it actually was and looked over at body next to her like she had just remembered it was there at all. Sunny was contently looking out the window, watching her world go by in blurring shades of colors and shapes.

"Are you okay?" She asked just to hear the little girl's voice again.

"Yeah. I love surprises."

"I know you do. And you're going to love this one as well."

Sunny shaped her mouth to speak a few times before permitting anything to actually came out again. "Um, Meryl. When you, Johnny and I are a family, is it okay if I call you mom?"

Meryl nearly lost all knowledge of how to maneuver the car in the moment but continued to stare ahead and steer from muscle memory.

"What?" She tried to sound as if she hadn't heard her the first time.

"Well, Roy told me that you and Johnny were going to be my family now that Uncle Hal and Dave are gone and that you'd really like it if I called you mom."

Meryl pulled over to the side of the road and unsnapped her seatbelt to turn and face Sunny. She took the girl's hands in hers and struggled for a moment with a wording.

"Sunny…", she started slowly, "there's a lot of stuff that's happened that no one was ever going to tell you. But I think you should know."

Sunny's brown eyes seemed to grow in their immense sadness. "I know that you can't have children of your own, Meryl, and that it made you really sad because all you ever wanted was for someone to tell you mommy." She smiled with uncertainty since Meryl's expression was illegible to her. "I can…call you mommy if you like."

Meryl threw herself into the steering wheel of the car and wept the most significant tears she had since her father had died when she was a little girl. She felt when Sunny had touched her back in an attempt to soothe her and even tried to answer her when she asked if she was okay. But the little girl's presence--which she was being agonizingly reminded of simply knowing that the second set of perceptible respirations in her car belonged to her--just tore away more at the structure that had been barely damning that particular pain's river over the years. The pain she didn't talk about or think about and loved when she couldn't even remember existed. The pain she had sloppily buried under the guise of accepting and living with it.

She didn't gather herself enough to look at Sunny again for nearly five minutes and by the time she had, the little girl's expression had gone from explicitly worried to undecidedly panicked.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the packet Roy had given her. She didn't remember putting it there but guessed it had been thoughtlessly stuffed there around the time Sunny had come into the room with the drawing to show her. It felt different in her hands now.

_Wonderfully_ different.

"Did…did I say something wrong?" Sunny finally asked, her voice crackling under the threat of tears herself.

Meryl shook her head. "No, honey. You didn't say anything wrong. Everything is okay. I promise." She ran the back of her hand down the little girl's cheek and smiled to assure her that everything really was fine now.

When the car was in motion again, Sunny asked, "Where are we going? You never told me."

She didn't answer a moment but finally blindly reached over to affectionately ruffle her hair.

"We can go wherever we want, Sunny. It's the start of our new life."

* * *

_So...of course Sunny isn't DEAD! I'm cruel but not heartless. I couldn't do that to her under no circumstances. There was never a draft of the story where she was dead. Never. That's just wrong. She's a fictional child, yes, but she's still the representation of one. I hope you guys enjoyed this and I hope it kept you on the edge of the seat and guessing until the very end. Thank you for reading. :) - Andi_


End file.
